Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 57 CHAPTER III. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF TREATMENT WITH ANTI-SERA?ADMINISTRATION OF ANTI-SERA? COMPLICATIONS AND SEQUELS OF THE TREATMENT General Principles of Treatment with Anti-sera It should be clearly understood and recognised that the phrase ‘ cure of disease- is, in an active sense, a misnomer. The actual ’ healing - of a damaged tissue or restoration of function of a disordered organ is brought about by the reparative powers of the vital activities of the living matter, bioplasm, or protoplasm of the body, the vis medicatrix naturce. Strictly speaking, the physician or surgeon, by his art and science, does not ‘ cure- in the sense of repairing actual damage; all that he does is, as far as possible, to bring about a condition of things most favourable for the exercise of its healing functions by the living matter. First of all, as far as possible, he removes the cause ofthe disordered condition, and then, for example, he compels rest, and applies cold or heat to an inflamed part; he administers drugs which are known by experience or experiment to modify the activities of the living matter in a particular direction, and so on. It therefore follows that if tissue damage has occurred through the action of mechanical injuries, toxic substances, and such like, the administration of drugs and similar substances will not directly repair the damage, but will only assist the curative action of the tissues. Tissue damage is repaired by cellular action alone. The anti-toxins and anti-sera are able to neutralise the toxins or activities of the bacteria which produce disease, and if they be administered early enough, they will prevent the tissue damage to which the morbid symptoms are due. Anti-toxin has no more power than any other drug to repair tissue damage if this has …
